Curiosity killed it
by FuelsTheComedy
Summary: The Pyro is a curiosity. The Medic is a curious man. When the good doctor has an opportunity to examine what is under the mask of his elusive teammate, he does not let it evade him. He soon learns that some things are better left unknown.


The amiable, soft-spoken good ol' boy from Texas idly strummed his guitar as he sat with his team inside the infirmary's waiting room. The Medic was giving the entire team the same operation that had turned their Russian, hulk of a teammate into a bullet proof beast. Currently, the youngest member of the team, the Scout, was being seen to. He was a good kid, but he sure did like to moan an awful lot about being the only merc on the team under the age of 35.

As he sat with his guitar, Engie nonchalantly glanced around at his team. Sitting directly across from him was the Spy. Engie liked his French teammate well enough he supposed, though he did need to remind himself not to get too friendly with him: he was a _spy_ after all – a backstabber for a living. Sitting, or rather, slouching in the chair next to the Spy was the Demoman. Demo had a quick temper and an unhealthy love for scrumpy, but Engie had liked him the first minute they had met. Save all the black Scotsman's manic depressive outbursts, he was one of the most agreeable on the team.

_Buuuuuuuuuuurp!_

The Spy gave Demo a disgusted look before glancing down at his watch and then lighting what Engie could only assume was his nineteenth cigarette. Directly across from Demo was the Sniper, who was stretched out on his small, awkward chair. He'd been sleeping for a little less than an hour with his hat pulled down over his eyes to shield him from the bright lights of the waiting room. He was a lanky fella, his long legs stuck out and crossed over at his ankles and his hands clasped across his stomach. Of all his teammates Engie probably got along with the Aussie the best, but the assassin preferred his own company, and so was rarely spotted among his team. Choosing to stand rather than sit "like a girl" the Soldier stood at attention next to Sniper, awaiting orders to enter the Medics chop-shop. At first Engie didn't like the soldier, he thought he was – to put it delicately- dumber than a box of rocks. He'd become more sympathetic towards him since then though, realising that he wasn't dumb. He was just completely insane.

Sitting next to the Tex was the one merc on the team that Engie had yet to conclude an opinion of. Covered from head to toe in a flame retardant suit – complete with an eerie gas mask – and wielding a huge homemade flamethrower, was the Pyro. Engie glanced sideways at him, he'd been staring at the same page of his magazine for an hour but the Tex couldn't quite see what the contents were. Substituting his deadly flamethrower due to Medic's absolute refusal to humour weapons in his infirmary (of course, excluding himself) the Pyro absent-mindedly flicked his lighter open and closed, again and again. If the repetitive clinking of the lighters lid was irritating anyone, nobody dared speak up.

Click flick fsshh. Click flick fsshh. Click flick fsshh. Click flick fsshh.

Time continued to roll on by as the men sat quietly, trying to think of anything other than the fact that they would soon have _the Medic_ inside of them. To say that the Medic had poor bedside manners would be the equivalent of saying that Demo liked a _little_ drink now and again. The German was an honest man, but that about summed up his good qualities. He was honest with his patients; he told them that he didn't _care_ what they had to say, that he simply humours them to make it easier to reframe from just drugging them into a coma. He didn't bother to try to hide the fact that he was a sadist who boarded on having Renfield's syndrome. He was a Medic by title only, although he was _very_ good at what he did, he did it for the most twisted of reasons.

And so they waited quietly, too nervous to speak.

"Hey, thanks Doc!"

_BOOM_!

The double doors leading into the Medics operating theatre burst open to reveal the Scout – still alive, thank God – with a wide grin on his face.

"Oh-ho-ho _man_! You would not believe," His grin shifted into a grimace "how much this hurts."

Suddenly, the Scout's chest bulged and a cooing noise came from inside, a faint glow radiated from beneath his red shirt. The young man slowly peered down at his chest in horror.

"Archimedes!?" The German called after his pet dove, who was presumably the source of the cooing within Scout. Like its master, Archimedes also had an overly enthusiastic fascination with blood, it would seem. This was gonna be a long night, thought Engie.

It was already creeping into the early hours of the morning as the Medic finished working on the Engineer up.

"Very nicely zere," The Medic yanked his medigun down so that it pointed at the Texans chest, which then began to rapidly heal itself. The Doctor had a manic grin stretched from ear to ear, his white teeth beaming. "Zat looks good!" he offered his hand to Engie, who took and allowed himself to be helped up.

"Hoo wee, I'm mightly glad that's all done." Engie patted his tender chest; the Medic chuckled at him as he began to wipe his hands with a cloth.

"Try not to sound too eager to flee now." The Medic smirked and walked him to the theatre doors as the Engineer replaced the yellow hard hat on his head.

"Thanks a million doc!" The short man practically skipped away, obviously genuinely happy that he wasn't in too much pain. The Medic scanned the room for his final patient.

The Pyro.

The Medic had seen allot of atrocities in his life time – hell, he had caused most of them – but even he was a little unnerved by this mute, Frankenstein of a man. But alas, his morbid curiosity for all things abominable had him very much looking forward to cutting the masked man open. What would he find, he wondered? He spotted him, sitting at the far end of the waiting room playing with his lighter.

"Zere you are." The Pyro didn't move. When the Doctor loudly cleared his throat, so very slowly, the Pyro cocked his head to the side. Staring.

"Ready?" The Pyro remained silent. "Vunderbar, come along." The Medic turned on his heel and stalked back into his theatre as if the Pyro had answered him. Eventually standing, Pyro slowly followed the German into his domain and stood, carefully glancing around.

"Now, the procedure itself vill not take too long but unfortunately unlike ze rest of ze team, you have never had an examination by me before." He paused, thinking. "I vould like to give you a brief check-up just to make sure everysing's well" It was a lie of course, the Medic didn't care whether or not the procedure killed the masked man or not, he'd just respawn. But he was a man of science – he had to satisfy his curiosity.

"Remove your mask and suit, bitte."

The Pyro seemed to consider this for a moment, cocking his head to the side again, but he didn't move. The Medic lifted and eyebrow and tapped his finger on his crossed arm impatiently. Was the man foreign and simply unable to understand him? Was he just modest? Was he just an idiot?

"Vell?"

"Murr hurr mphuphurrur, hurr mph phrr"

"I cannot understand a vord you are saying, dummkopf."

"… mrph?"

Medic pointed the pencil he was griping into the Pyros face. "Take ze mask _off_ so I can understand." He was growing more and more impatient as the Pyro simply stared at him. The only one on the team who seemed to be able to communicate properly with this thing was the Engineer, but the Tex only annoyed the Medic with his annoying sense of "morality." _Bah_.

"Bitte-" he paused. "_Please_, it iz just a quick look over – no'sing big." The Medic wasn't used to giving his patients reassuring smiles – he never saw the point, if they didn't co-operate they'd _die_. It was that simple. But this was different, so he forced the closest thing to a comforting smile that he could muster. There was anticipation as the two men stood still for a long moment, and then the Pyro seemed to exhale wearily before turning his back to the doctor. He mumbled something before slowly lifting his hands, unfastening and pulling off his gas mask.

"Argh.." He groaned as if the motioned pained him. All the Medic could see was the back of a bald head. The Pyro placed his gas mask on a nearby counter.

_Wheeze. Wheeze. Wheeeeze._

The Pyro had one hand resting on top of his discarded gas mask, his back still to the doctor, and almost immediately there was a sick wheezing, just a little softer than a death rattle, that began to croak from him.

The Medic watched in fascinated silence.

The Pyros back and chest moved very visibly as he took in deep breathes, each time he inhaled there was the sound of stubborn phlegm stuck, gurgling deep within his throat. He cleared his throat several times but the gunk refused to move. His lungs sounded ravaged.

"Come lay down on ze table when you are ready." The Medic didn't take his eyes off his patient for a second. Pyro removed his gloves, his braces and his straps that crossed over his suit and then his boots as well. More hesitation. Then the suit was undone and slowly taken off, he grunted at every tug and the sound of his sweaty, bare feet touching the cold tiles were followed by a sharp intake of breathe.

Then he slowly approached the table, his head hanging, where he sat. He refused to lay down at first.

The Medic stood before him, staring.

"Very gut."

His words were positive but he had a hard, cold look on his face as he eyed the man before him. The Pyro continued to wheeze and clear his throat, looking to the ground, his shoulders slumped.

"Look at me." He did, and the Medic clipped thumb and forefinger on to his chin and turned him left, then right. Up, then down. Cough? _Cough, cough_. He scribbled in his notepad. The Doctor had half expected a woman under that suit if he was honest, but no he was just a man. A burn victim.

The irony of that did not come as a surprise to the Medic, but the sheer _severity_ of his burns was enough to catch his eye. Had it been anyone other than the Medic, they would have drawn back in fear and horror.

The Pyro had extensive, third-degree burns that left him horrifically disfigured: scorched so severely that he was left blind in one eye and his ears, lips, nose and one remaining eyelid had all been melted off. The skin on his whole head was so badly burned that hair would never grow there again.

The Medic brushed his fingers over than eerily smooth skin, causing the Pyro to stiffen.

The skin of his face was smooth and pink in some areas, but creased and rough in others. There were odd patches of discoloration here and there, and the two holes where his nose had once been were different shapes and sizes – not that they were the only thing unsymmetrical here.

"I'm amazed zat you survived such hellish burns." He glided his touch over the patch where a right ear had once been. The Pyro hissed.

"May I enquire as to how zis happened?"

There was silence as the other man considered this, until the Pyros melted features turned up in a cruel, hideous grin that tugged grossly at his tight flesh. He motioned for the Medic to come closer. He obliged and the Pyro placed a burned hand on his shoulder, pulling him in close and putting his scared mouth to the Doctors ear. In the lowest, most predatory voice imaginable, he hissed.

"_When a fire broke out at the asylum …_" his fowl breath was hot in Medics ear. "_I chose to stay behind and meet my fate_." A guttural laugh."_Or so the doctors thought. I tore off my inmate uniform and allowed the fire to consume me_." He tighted his grip on Medics shoulder painfully. "_I could smell my own skin melt away; feel the goo of my eye dripping down my cheek."_ He swallowed a lump in his ravaged throat. "_When they found me, I told them I was a Doctor at the hospital, burned beyond recognition_." _Wheeze. Wheeze. Wheeze_. "_As soon as I was able, I fled the country. If they had discovered who I really was … they would have executed me_." _Wheeze. Wheeze. Wheeze._

"Vhy?" the Medics voice was a whisper. A dark laugh.

"_I started that fire of course; it took the lives of 78 innocent people Doctor." _His death rattle crocked in the silent room. "_That took my body count into the hundreds." _He let go of the doctor who slowly, carefully backed away. He couldn't hide the strain on his face.

"_Get on with your procedure_," his ugly face twisted dangerously "_You wouldn't be the first doctor I've roasted alive."_ A sickening chuckle.

And the good doctor did, his heart pounding rapidly in his chest. He realized then, that the Pyro _was_ a monster – _with_ or _without_ that mask.

Some things are better left unknown, the Medic conceded.

_Wheeze. Wheeze. Wheeze_.


End file.
